Merkel: Ireland once again on the right path

IRELAND is being praised and admonished in Brussels for being the good pupil of the bailout school but a bad pupil for suggestions that it would attempt to renegotiate its bailout.

The biggest paymaster of euro bailouts, the German government, has piled praise on Ireland for sticking to the terms of its bailout while a second bailout for Greece is still up in the air and Italy’s government is fighting about possible cuts to its mounting debts.

“Ireland, more than anywhere, is once again on the right path,” Angela Merkel told throngs in the German Bundestag parliament ahead of a crucial vote which was carried easily on the expansion of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) from €440 billion to over €1 trillion yesterday.